Tips and advice for paladins
Healing and non-Retribution dps Spell crit rating will help a healing set quite a lot if you have Illumination, but for dps it is largely useless. Seal of Righteousness and Seal of Vengeance cannot crit. Their Judgements can crit, but if there is a tradeoff between spell damage and spell crit, spell damage should be taken for a dps set. And any build having Holy Shock will include (as a matter of course) Divine Favor which gives a guaranteed crit to your next heal or Holy Shock, and can improve dps in that manner. For a real solid healing build (or any other pally build) spirit should be ignored. There may be times in dungeon runs where you have time that you're not spamming spells where spirit could help you regen your mana. But when you're not spamming spells is hardly the time that you really need the mana regen that you want from spirit. Furthermore, spirit gives us no side bonuses that some priests and druids have such as a bonus to healing. In a raid there is usually more than one healer. One for the tank and one for the group. If you are the healer of the tank and continually find yourself assisting in the group healing it is usually one of two problems. Either the tank is not generating enough aggro or the DPS group is not watching what they are doing and dealing too much DPS which thus pulls the aggro off of the tank. This usually leads to a group wipe. A good item to go into Karazhan with is , and it should serve you well until you can get . +31 healing or better on them is wonderful. When combined with , is probably the best healing mace you will find for a very long time. Protection For tanking, you do need spell damage, but for most purposes it should be enough to simply have a spell-damage weapon, such as , , or another similar weapon. Assuming you are wearing no other (or little other) spell-damage gear, weapons that grant defense rating may not permit you to get and hold enough aggro, rendering useless all your defense skill value and your talent build. You may find that hit rating (as of Patch 2.3) is helpful when tanking to reduce the number of Righteous Defense resists, or perhaps you may find that the number of resists you see is acceptable due to not having to use it as frequently as the next guy. A protection paladin's tanking gear shouldn't need MP/5 gear for their highest-level tanking gear. A paladin should expect to take enough damage that the heals that are cast on them will give them enough mana regen to finish the battle with at least 15% of their mana pool. That said, if a paladin's highest tanking gear far outdoes a weaker instance (a level 70 instance even, compared with a heroic), it may be desirable to wear pseduo-defense/dps gear (but of course including a shield) which should include MP/5 or else the paladin might run out of mana during the course of the battle. You should completely ignore standard melee stats (attack power, melee crit rate, etc.) because what little threat we get from white damage is negligible compared to holy damage, which is improved by spell-damage gear. Hit rating bonuses can be helpful, considering the fact that we have to actually hit with our melee weapon in order for your favorite seal (of Righteousness or of Vengeance) to proc, but it is not as important to us as it is to warriors and druids. Unlike warriors and druids, we also get threat from Holy Shield, assuming they're already attacking us, and Consecration, assuming they're in the vicinity. Retribution Retribution Paladins are by far the best talent specialization for soloing. As of Patch 2.3, Retribution Paladins can be equally viable in raids as well. With the right build, Retribution Paladins can kill mobs quicker than mages, warlocks, or rogues, though downtime is increased. A good Retribution Paladin should put over ten points into Protection, as you'll want 3/3 points into precision, and Blessing of Kings is actually more effective than Blessing of Might, even if it is improved. In addition, critical hit rating is what is needed. Blessing of Might, unfortunately, adds nothing to that. 5 points into Holy for Divine Strength is also extremely useful. Vindication is nice for PvP (3/3 for 15% reduction in all stats, including Stamina), but does not work in PvE, as monsters do not have "normal" stats relative to players (straight health/attack/damage). Every ability that improves Seal of the Crusader is absolutely essential, and Seal of Command is just a given - DPS is non-existant without it, and Crusader Strike is a necessity too. Aside from those points, simply throw the rest wherever you want - this talent spec is kind of loose. As of patch 2.3 there are a lot more desirable talents in Retribution - most notably the buff to Fanaticism that will reduce threat generated by your attacks by 10/15/20/25/30%. If you plan on raiding, this is absolutely critically important to have. No more holding back your DPS to prevent drawing aggro, you can finally go all-out and even use Avenging Wrath without immediately aggroing everything. You may have to sacrifice either Precision or Divine Strength in order to get all the more useful Retribution talents - the patch hasn't been active long enough to determine whether or not it's worth it yet. The kind of stats you'll be wanting to obtain are, in order, Critical Strike Rating, Attack Power, Spell Critical Hit Rating, Hit Rating. By extension, you'll want, again, in order, Agility and Strength (these two should be pretty evenly balanced), Stamina, and finally Intellect. The key to Retribution Paladins is to bring down enemies quickly, not long, sustained, fights that require lots of mana. You should never be afraid to throw on Mail or Leather gear if that's what your stats require, but try to keep most of it plate. If you are unsure which weapon to look for, just imagine that you are an Arms Warrior. A very good starting point for any Retribution Paladin is to take up Blacksmithing and make either , , or . After this, there are two paths you can take - you can either level up for blacksmithing to 375 (requiring huge amounts of grinding or money) and make the second tier and eventually third tier weapons, or you can raid and get your epic weapons that way. , are both great weapons to obtain through Karazhan. If you find yourself in the arena quite a bit, is extremely useful due to the fact that it gives a fairly nice buff to both dps and healing. Aside from this, you should just experiment and do what works, it takes a lot of practice, a unique gear, stat, and spec combination, and a little luck to get Retribution nailed down, but once you do, I can guarantee that you'll be killing enemies faster than mages, warlocks, druids, and those smug little rogues. :) See Also *'Paladin' *Protection *Holy *Retribution Category:Paladins